O Sentido Subjetivo da Sexualidade na Terceira Idade

Abstract

This study had as its aim to understand the constitution of the subjective sense of sexuality in elderly persons, supported by Gonzaléz Rey s subjective theory and Vygotsky s historic-cultural psychology. Both approches the history of the developing person. The qualitative method was utilized, whose principles are state as follows: knowledge is a constructivist-interpretative production; production has an interactive character; the singularity has a legitimate level of the knowledge production. Three female and a male students from the Third Age Open University- Goiás Catholic University (UCG) were extensively interviewed. The instruments used were: dynamic conversation and sentence completion. As its main result it was observed that the sexuality in persons with 60 years of age and over may be tangled with the subjective sense generated by the person in the trajectory of his/her life and can be experienced as: health, self-esteem, personal achievement, affectivity and fellowship, naturalization of the decline of the sexual desire or, ever, the exclusion of sexual activity. It was concluded therefore, that the process of sexuality development in the elderly is singular.